Today, we embark on a series of insightful and, occasionally, gruesome articles looking at the achievements of our FIG President, Professor Bruno Grandi. Grandi took up office in 1996, having been Vice President of the Italian Gymnastics Federation since 1987. I suppose he will modestly claim only partial credit for the abolition of compulsories following the 1996 Olympics. The wheels of this particular change were set in motion before he came to power. But our President Bruno surely embraced it, wholeheartedly.
Brett Davis, my former editor at The Mogilnyi, posted this morning a wonderful montage on his Facebook site, comparing the highest scoring floor compulsory (Lilia Podkopayeva) with the lowest scoring (Eileen Diaz). For me the distance between the marks (9.85/8.4) in no way expresses the glaring differences in their work.
View it on Youtube.
Brett's post was a timely reminder of how vital the compulsory exercises once were, and how they emphasised the importance of good basics, encouraging virtuosity and expression. Compulsories were dumped by the FIG in 1997 partly to make the sport 'easier' to televise and 'more accessible' to a general audience. The FIG attempted to incorporate elements of compulsory assessment in their revised Code of Points, but sadly, over time, their over-prescriptive approach has all but killed off the aesthetic of both women's and men's gymnastics.
The stark differences seen between Podkopayeva's and Diaz's work only tell a small part of the story. You can use compulsories as a way of measuring the slide-rule accuracy of leaps, turns, somersaults and twists, but the real difference was in the way the gymnast used these basics to tell a story and create a consummate performance. The compulsory exercises really did give the judges a chance to differentiate between the very top performers even when technically their gymnastics was just about at an even level. I remember a few people complaining that they didn't want to watch the same routine time and time again, but the truth was they never were.
Let's take a look at a few of these mundane and identical exercises :
Lilia Podkopayeva, 1996
View it on Youtube.
Podkopayeva could perhaps be seen as the ultimate performance gymnast under the current Code. She manages to combine precision and accuracy with perfect execution, and still get the line and amplitude more than right. Podkopayeva is renowned for her familiarity with classical ballet, having been a regular attender at the local theatre, and this is certainly reflected in her work.
Remember, ballet is not so much about style as it is about good basics, making the most of both simple and more complex moves, and finding expression through movement. A lack of thorough ballet training makes itself obvious throughout a gymnast's work. The way gymnasts such as Tweddle, Raisman and Wieber power through super high leaps without really finding any air time or impression of lateral flight is often a disappointment to me. This explains much more about the shortcomings of their work than attention to body type or whether the gymnast can hit 180 degrees in split.
Some people feel Podkopayeva's style is somewhat robotic but I think that impression is encouraged by the Code which requires very exact take-up and set-down positions for each move. It's also a characteristic of several of her Ukrainian predecessors, including 1985 World Champion, Oksana Omelianchik.
Oksana Omelianchik, 1987
View it on Youtube.
Interesting. To me Omelianchik manages to find a good balance between precision and expression. She really was a lyrical gymnast and manages to presents this as a consummate routine. Putting aside considerations of the dance composition, a superior effort to Podkopayeva's, I think.
Svetlana Boguinskaia, 1996
View it on Youtube.
Boguinskaia had lost a little of her mellifluous expression by the time she reached Atlanta; is it me or is the movement a little harder, more powerful and less fluid than eight years earlier in Seoul?
Shannon Miller, 1996
View it on Youtube.
Miller matured wonderfully towards the end of her career and this was one of the best compulsory exercises in the competition. She has a slight tendency to over exagerrate the head positions but her sense of telling a story is strong in this routine.
Svetlana Khorkina, 1996
View it on Youtube.
To me, it's nip and tuck between Podkopayeva and Khorkina for best. Podkopayeva more precise, powerful and energetic, but Khorkina always bringing that little extra expression to her work. Softness of line and the way she links the moves seamlessly to create a routine gives Khorkina the edge as far as I'm concerned.
As can be seen from this brief montage, compulsory exercises were repetitive, boring and totally pointless. In fact, most of you probably will have fallen asleep by now so will never read this. The only sorry thing about this is that you won't get round to reading me saying that Professor Grandi has thus been completely exonerated of any blame relating to the destruction of the aesthetic in gymnastics. His actions were motivated only by a concern to present gymnastics to its best advantage and enable its beauty to be appreciated by a wider and wider audience. Compulsories simply HAD to go because they were making gymnasts look bad.
Brett Davis, my former editor at The Mogilnyi, posted this morning a wonderful montage on his Facebook site, comparing the highest scoring floor compulsory (Lilia Podkopayeva) with the lowest scoring (Eileen Diaz). For me the distance between the marks (9.85/8.4) in no way expresses the glaring differences in their work.
View it on Youtube.
Brett's post was a timely reminder of how vital the compulsory exercises once were, and how they emphasised the importance of good basics, encouraging virtuosity and expression. Compulsories were dumped by the FIG in 1997 partly to make the sport 'easier' to televise and 'more accessible' to a general audience. The FIG attempted to incorporate elements of compulsory assessment in their revised Code of Points, but sadly, over time, their over-prescriptive approach has all but killed off the aesthetic of both women's and men's gymnastics.
The stark differences seen between Podkopayeva's and Diaz's work only tell a small part of the story. You can use compulsories as a way of measuring the slide-rule accuracy of leaps, turns, somersaults and twists, but the real difference was in the way the gymnast used these basics to tell a story and create a consummate performance. The compulsory exercises really did give the judges a chance to differentiate between the very top performers even when technically their gymnastics was just about at an even level. I remember a few people complaining that they didn't want to watch the same routine time and time again, but the truth was they never were.
Let's take a look at a few of these mundane and identical exercises :
Lilia Podkopayeva, 1996
View it on Youtube.
Podkopayeva could perhaps be seen as the ultimate performance gymnast under the current Code. She manages to combine precision and accuracy with perfect execution, and still get the line and amplitude more than right. Podkopayeva is renowned for her familiarity with classical ballet, having been a regular attender at the local theatre, and this is certainly reflected in her work.
Remember, ballet is not so much about style as it is about good basics, making the most of both simple and more complex moves, and finding expression through movement. A lack of thorough ballet training makes itself obvious throughout a gymnast's work. The way gymnasts such as Tweddle, Raisman and Wieber power through super high leaps without really finding any air time or impression of lateral flight is often a disappointment to me. This explains much more about the shortcomings of their work than attention to body type or whether the gymnast can hit 180 degrees in split.
Some people feel Podkopayeva's style is somewhat robotic but I think that impression is encouraged by the Code which requires very exact take-up and set-down positions for each move. It's also a characteristic of several of her Ukrainian predecessors, including 1985 World Champion, Oksana Omelianchik.
Oksana Omelianchik, 1987
View it on Youtube.
Interesting. To me Omelianchik manages to find a good balance between precision and expression. She really was a lyrical gymnast and manages to presents this as a consummate routine. Putting aside considerations of the dance composition, a superior effort to Podkopayeva's, I think.
Svetlana Boguinskaia, 1996
View it on Youtube.
Boguinskaia had lost a little of her mellifluous expression by the time she reached Atlanta; is it me or is the movement a little harder, more powerful and less fluid than eight years earlier in Seoul?
Shannon Miller, 1996
View it on Youtube.
Miller matured wonderfully towards the end of her career and this was one of the best compulsory exercises in the competition. She has a slight tendency to over exagerrate the head positions but her sense of telling a story is strong in this routine.
Svetlana Khorkina, 1996
View it on Youtube.
To me, it's nip and tuck between Podkopayeva and Khorkina for best. Podkopayeva more precise, powerful and energetic, but Khorkina always bringing that little extra expression to her work. Softness of line and the way she links the moves seamlessly to create a routine gives Khorkina the edge as far as I'm concerned.
As can be seen from this brief montage, compulsory exercises were repetitive, boring and totally pointless. In fact, most of you probably will have fallen asleep by now so will never read this. The only sorry thing about this is that you won't get round to reading me saying that Professor Grandi has thus been completely exonerated of any blame relating to the destruction of the aesthetic in gymnastics. His actions were motivated only by a concern to present gymnastics to its best advantage and enable its beauty to be appreciated by a wider and wider audience. Compulsories simply HAD to go because they were making gymnasts look bad.
Great article. I share the concern, gymnastics has to stay aesthetic and classy , gymnasts have to show the abilities to execute basic skills choreographic as well as acrobatic on a high level and that's what the compulsories were for.
ReplyDeleteMore '88 and '92 compulsories, please! '96 was awful. Was it even possible to do that set of moves to the music? "Die Fledermaus," a farce, should be light and fun, a bunch of old Met stars getting drunk and reminiscing on New Year's Eve. This was a joyless chase, and the gymnast (and audience) always lost.
ReplyDeleteGood riddance to compulsories!
ReplyDeleteExplain yourself, heretic! Are you supporting our President? Who are you, and where from?
ReplyDeleteThe 85-88 compulsory FX was beautiful. I still don't know what piece it's to, and have not managed to find video of Mostepanova or Baraksanova performing it, despite much youtube trawling.
ReplyDeletePS Loved the Mogilnyi. I remember in particular the Bogi interview and something about a horse that looked like Lyssenko. Any chance of a revival?
I'll see if I can find some more of that edition of the choreography to post here.
ReplyDeleteI think the articles you mention were written by Brett and Amy - my contribution was an article on Mogilnyi's hair, a report on the 92 Europeans including a letter from Lyssenko to the floor judges, and I seem to remember a version of To Be or Not To Be written for Alexandrov, just after the 1991 worlds.
I try to be humourous sometimes but often people just don't get it. Maybe it's an age thing. I'm just not funny any more, at least not deliberately ;0)
I would love to see Anna Pavlova do compulsories. It would be so good to watch.
ReplyDelete